May 31, 2013

Scene: I am lying in bed with Toby the Italian Greyhound curled up against my right side under the blankets, huge black cat Xena on my torso and smaller black cat Velvet above my head on my pillow. I hear lightning really close to the house. Here is my internal monologue.

Please don't let Toby wake up! There's no way it's safe to take him out in this. I hope I'm safe in here. I read that interview last week with the guy who was struck by lightning sitting in his office. I'm right by a window, too. Was his window open or closed? I wonder if it matters? Would the drape over the window save me? Probably not. If I did get struck by lightning, it would get the pets, too. That would be bad. Should I shut the window? No, that would wake the dog up. And get me closer to the window, and that's what the lightning wants, isn't it? It would suck to get hit by lightning while I'm touching the metal window frame to close it. Ooh, that was close! I'll bet my hair is frizzy from all this humidity. At least it's nice and warm with the blankets and all the animals. Zzzz...

Afterword: It stopped raining eventually, I managed to take the dog out twice, and everyone lived.

May 09, 2013

It's only been a few weeks since my new doctor suggested that I radically overhaul my diet to address my various health issues, but I'm already noticing huge improvements in the way I look and feel.

Basically I'm going with clean eating, which means that every food I eat should ideally still look the way it did when it was harvested. That means processed foods are out (I'm fudging things a little with canned beans and tomatoes). Dairy is also a no-go, which I'd already figured out on my own except that I had to be forcibly separated from my last holdout: cheese. I've discovered the joy of kale (why didn't anyone ever sit me down and explain how wonderful kale is?) and I can whip together an amazing soup or salad at the drop of a hat these days.

It took me about a week to figure out how much food to bring to work. I have my usual Shakeology shake in the morning, then my main lunch at 11:30 and a smaller meal (usually a salad or a veggie smoothie) around 2:30 p.m. My company recently bought a Vitamix blender for us all to use and they provide fruit and vegetables for smoothies. What great timing!

Did I mention I gave up caffeine? For whatever reason, it was completely painless this time. Now I drink the juice of a half lemon mixed with water every morning and it's fully as energizing as coffee without the mid-afternoon withdrawal period.

I lost ten pounds pretty much immediately. All of my allergy symptoms vanished within a week. By the end of the second week, my heartburn was gone. It's really been quite amazing.

My energy levels have also bounced back. I was really in the doldrums when I started, but now I'm going to two yoga classes a week and walking as much as I can. I'm looking forward to taking a running clinic in a couple of weeks to see if I can make improvements there as well.

I know this all sounds kind of fringe-y and granola, but it's working so incredibly well that I can't fault it. I'm getting plenty to eat and I'm not getting tired of it at all despite the fact that I haven't even started consulting the cookbooks I bought at the beginning.

I'm looking at this as a permanent lifestyle change rather than a diet. Whenever it occurs to me that I might have eaten "x" for the last time, I'm perfectly okay with it. If that's what it takes to feel and look healthy, it's worth it.

My husband is not joining me in my new eating habits except when something I make for myself smells really good and he decides to have some. That's probably going to remain somewhat of an inconvenience indefinitely, but as I mentioned when I first brought up these changes, this is something I need to do for me.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. It's pretty exciting so far!

May 08, 2013

If my mother were still alive, she would be horrified by this post. (Possibly by my blog in general.) I was always the kid blithely telling everyone at the school carnival that the cake she brought was from the grocery store, while she was constantly cautioning me not to talk about "private family business."

Well here's some private family business: I'm a terrible housekeeper.

There was a time when I had someone come in every other week and clean my house. It was wonderful because I hate house cleaning, but it got to be awfully pricey and so when my longtime cleaning lady moved on to other work, I decided to see what I could do on my own.

It turns out that it's really tough to keep up with housework when you're almost never home. However, I had more free time than usual last weekend, so I decided I needed to tackle cleaning the bathrooms and floors.

Damn, that's a lot of work!

It took me almost all day and I didn't get to the basement or manage to tidy and dust the surfaces in my dressing room, but I accomplished my quarterly deep clean. That's right: quarterly. That's pretty much the schedule I've been on so far. Heh.

Here are some of the stats:

Amount I would have paid to have the house cleaned twice a month for the last quarter: $420

Different floor types that require different cleaners: 3

Number of cats I made into the bed when I changed the sheets: 2

Length of time it took before the dog peed on one of the clean floors: <12 hours

Approximate number of kittens' worth of cat fur emptied from the ShopVac: 5

So yes, my house is disgusting until it isn't and then it gets disgusting again.

Where is my husband in all of this, you might reasonably ask? Why don't you not ask. That would be best. The last time we had that discussion, he was very proud that he cleaned the house once. ONCE! In the past 20 years that we've been together. So yeah. The work of the feminist movement is never done and all that.

But at least I have the satisfaction of a clean house that smells like Method squirt + mop floor cleaner (mmm, almond-y!). It won't be long before the cat hair tumbleweeds start forming in the corners again, but for now I feel I can take a little break. Perhaps until summer.

One of the best things about blogging is finding and building communities. When I first started blogging, I used to make it a point not to talk about my cats too much, but I've since overcome my crazy cat lady shame. It's a good thing, too, because it turns out that the BlogPaws community suits me very well, despite the fact that I still blog about plenty of other stuff besides my pets.

Communities are about friends and finding new blogs to read, yes, but they're also about learning. BlogPaws does an excellent job in that regard. Their annual conference features top social media professionals teaching the ins and outs of multiple social outlets and mediums. There are beginner, intermediate and pro tracks for any blogger, as well as some specialty tracks aimed at the pet health and welfare professions.

The speakers are top-notch. Last year Laurie Ruettimann spoke on monetizing your blog. This year Susan Getgood is presenting on monetization and Toby Bloomberg is speaking about Twitter for business. Triberr founder Dino Dogan will be presenting again this year on the future of blogging.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but I think it's a great representation of how seriously BlogPaws handles core social media topics. There might be eight dogs, a cat and a ferret in the room during any given session, but all of the humans are learning useful information to advance their blogging goals.

Now you may be asking, "But is it fun?" Yes, it's fun! There are social activities built into every mealtime, receptions each night, a red carpet walk the last evening leading to a blog awards ceremony, and lots more. That doesn't count the expo hall, Catification Lounge, dog parks, craft projects and other BlogPaws-specific activities. There will even be BlogPaws Karaoke this year. I don't know exactly what that will entail, but it sounds intriguing.

Want to know more and see some photos? Check out my recaps from 2011 and 2012.

The 2013 conference starts a week from tomorrow in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. It's not too late to register! Use my discount code BlogPaws2013-POPS-Lindell-20 and you'll get 20% off. Hope to see you there!

Disclosure: My opinions are my own. As a member of the BlogPaws Paws on Patrol team, I attend the conference at no charge and am compensated for helping to promote it.